The War Reporter Paul Watson Was Talking to His Mother

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and I asked her, Did you ever ask him
about what happens after? He’d been sick
for a while, of the same kidney disease
that’s killing me. Did my father believe
he’d be going somewhere? And she said, Well
how should I know? Ha ha ha. We just talked
about, you know, how to take care of all
you kids, what our savings account was and
all that sort of thing. And I said, You know,
I find this hard to believe. He’s staring
into the abyss—how could he face this
fact? And she just shrugged and answered, Bravely,
I suppose. And, well, that kind of told me
everything I need to know.

DAN O’BRIEN is a poet and playwright in Los Angeles. His collection War Reporter is forthcoming this year from Hanging Loose Press in New York and CB Editions in London. His play about Paul Watson, The Body of an American, premiered recently at Portland Center Stage.